All Natural Sidewalk Paint for Kids!

I'm always looking for things to do with the children that are easy, cheap, non-toxic, and environmentally safe. Recently, I came across this simple sidewalk paint recipe that the kids loved.  When using the sidewalk paint, the kids can use their fingers, toes, paintbrushes or whatever they like. I think the recipe cost about fifty cents for the project. 


Sidewalk Paint Recipe

1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup cold water
6-8 drops food coloring (can mix natural colors too)
Mix together and create a work of art.

Here are the bowls of paint mixes.  The kids mixed the colors themselves.  This was also a great way to learn about creating different color combinations.

Gabriel is holding up the corn starch that we used.

In action, Gabriel and Sarah are practicing becoming little Picassos.

This is what the sidewalk paint looks like.

It was a cold day outside.  What better way to warm up than with a nice, warm cup of homemade hot chocolate? Mmmmm.

~Enjoy~



Become a Sprout Farmer In a Kitchen Window?

I'm a bargain shopper.  Always have been, always will be.  At first I started hunting down bargains for purely economical reasons.  Then, once I kept on snagging those bargains faster than I could reel them in, I became hooked.  Did you know that studies have shown that finding a good bargain releases very similar chemicals to those that are released when falling in love? Yes, it's true. These days, my reasons for bargain shopping have evolved into a combo of, I would say an eco-econ reasoning( meaning ecologically and economically).  I take pride in knowing that we are doing our part to purchase second hand, or recycled items whenever possible.  Not only does it save you money, but you are helping to create a world that will likely be much more pleasant than its alternative. 
Below, I demonstrate how to easily grow sprouts.  You can use broccoli, radish, clover, etc.  I used radish and mong.  Keep in mind that my kitchen window does not get direct sunlight.  As long as some light filters through, that is all you need.

Cut a circle out of screen door mesh the size of your jar lid.

Before I trimmed the edges.

Here are some examples of what the mason jar looks like once the mesh is fitted.

Fill the mason jar with 1/4 cup of seed and let soak in water (half full) for 8 hours.  Empty water.  Fill jar with water again and swirl around.  Pour out all water and let jar sit at a 45 degree angle for another day.  Do this for three days.  On the fourth day, fill and rinse seeds.  Let sit in a very sunny window, or outside.  That's it!  Now you can reap what you have sewn.

Simple and easy sprouts!  You too can be a kitchen window sprout farmer *winks*



Dirty Work

Today, I am purchasing a book called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barabara Kingsolver.  Not only do I have a voice as a consumer, but I have a voice as a mother.  I hold the ability to teach my children (voting members of tomorrow) that our earth is a special place, just like their bodies.  Gathering food grown from the earth (by their own two little hands) will NEVER be seen as backward or barbaric.  Not if I can help it! What a sacred gift we have as mothers.  We have the ability to shape a new generation.  A generation that one day, will move on and into the land of tomorrow.  A land that we will never see.

Here is an exerpt from the book that I saw on Amazon.  It has me excited!  May it inspire you to make a difference in your life, and in those around you.

"Paris I have seen, and places beyond,
where many different languages assign
similar scorn with the phrase “dirty work.”
My generation has absorbed an implicit
 hierarchy of values in which working the
soil is poor people’s toil. Apparently we’re
now meant to rise above even touching the
stuff those people grow. The real labors of
keeping a family fed (as opposed to the
widely used metaphor) are presumed tedious
and irrelevant. A woman confided to me at a
New York dinner party, “Honestly, who has
time to cook anymore? My daughter will
probably grow up wondering what a kitchen
is used for.” The lament had the predictable
blend of weariness and braggadocio,
unremarkable except for this woman’s
post at the helm of one of the nation’s
major homemaking magazines.
This is modern thinking. Even keeping
house does not dirty its hands with food
production. Sorry, but we have work to do,
the stuff that happens in an office or agency
or retail outlet—waiting tables, for instance.
Clicking a cash register at the speed of light.
Driving a truck on a long-distance haul. We
have risen above the muddy business of an
agrarian society, heaven be praised. People
in China and India do that for us now". Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Vegetable, Miracle, pg. 6-7 

So, what are we going to do about this?